Gamers may be familiar with how the OnLive service streams console and PC-quality games over the internet—think Netflix, but for video games that you can control in real time—but there's no reason why this service should be limited to just games. It isn't anymore. OnLive Desktop, which comes first to the iPad, will stream Windows 7 apps directly to you without having to actually install these apps, or even Windows, locally.

The idea is pretty simple. OnLive's servers are the ones that actually run the Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps, but they stream the resulting video—the stuff you'd see on a monitor—to your iPad. So for example, when you're changing a cell in Excel on your iPad screen, that info gets sent to their servers, rendered in the cloud, then the resulting image (the cell display being changed) gets piped back to you. This works for games, presentations and HD video as well.

Because these apps are rendered on the server, there's really no limit to what kind of apps can be supported. And since OnLive already supports PCs, Macs and even a mini console that you can connect to your TV, it makes sense that these platforms will be eventually supported by OnLive as well. What's this mean? It means you can get Windows desktop experience on your Mac (or even OnLive game console) without having to install Parallels or deal with a local Windows installation.